[Third Person's PoV]
Yukime held her fan over her chest to the side. Her ears were longer, and her fangs and nails had grown. Bluish markings appeared on her face as her magical aura intensified.
"Take a good look, Gettan. This is the true appearance of the Fox Spirit Tribe. Against the current me, you have no chance of winning!" she snarled.
"Hahahahahaha!" Gettan started to laugh maniacally.
Yukime looked at Gettan strangely before watching him reach into the inner pockets of his yukata and pull out a bottle of pills.
"I should have killed you when I had the chance," he snarled back as he downed the bottle and bit down on all the pills.
As he did, he started to grow taller, and the cut on his chest rapidly healed, becoming covered by black fur that began to grow all over his body. His mouth and nose soon extended, turning into a snout, while his ears, tail, claws, and fangs grew longer and thicker.
Gettan let out a large howl towards the moon, which shone down on them before looking at Yukime with a large grin that exposed his massive canines while he salivated.
He turned into a blur as he appeared by Yukime with claws aimed right at her jugular. Yukime instinctively reacted and blocked it with her fan, but Gettan swung his sword, which was in his other hand.
A large cut appeared across her chest, tainting the white snow red with her blood. Yukime cried out in pain and had to take a couple of steps back.
"You should have joined us when I offered. This power could have been yours. But it's too late now!" he yelled as he once again turned into a blur. As he ran towards Yukime, everything was going in slow motion for him.
He grabbed his long katana with both of his hands… paws?… and aimed his blade towards her neck.
That was until a long black furry arm came out from her shadow and blocked the sword with its claws. Their clash created sparks as Gettan looked on in horror.
Due to his form, his instincts were more astute than normal, enabling him to sense the danger that a single arm possessed. He then felt a shiver down his spine as he heard a growl directed towards him.
"Step away from my daughter!" Yukihime growled from Yukime's shadow. She pushed Gettan back and placed her hand on the ground before another hand appeared. She then pushed herself up from Yukime's shadow, slowly revealing her entire figure.
Gettan could only watch as a large purple and black monstrous fox, ten meters tall and on all fours, started to appear with Yukime underneath it. All nine of its tails swung around wildly. Her giant fox eyes narrowed toward the three-meter-tall Gettan.
"Mom, I'm fine. I'll heal quickly, don't worry," Yukime said, looking up. But Yukihime didn't take her eyes away from Gettan.
Gettan gritted his teeth. He hated feeling so powerless, which was one of the reasons he had joined the cult in the first place—for more power. Gettan's brain suddenly short-circuited.
"Did you just call that thing 'Mom'? And did that thing call you its daughter?"
Yukime smirked as she used most of her magic to heal the wound on her chest.
"What do you think?" Yukihime growled, the power of her voice reverberating through the area.
"That voice… But you're supposed to be dead. I killed you myself. I witnessed it happen. So how? How are you alive and in that form?"
"You'll find out soon enough," Yukihime grinned as one of her tails stretched out and swung towards Gettan, taking him by surprise.
Due to its power, he went flying back, his figure being imprinted on the snow as he rolled.
When he stopped, he saw a shadow above him, and when he looked up, he saw a giant paw coming down towards him.
He rolled away as the paw came crashing down, sinking into the ground with all its bestial strength.
As Gettan rolled towards safety, Yukihime's tail came swatting down, breaking most of his bones and making him scream out in agony.
Yukihime's tail then wrapped around Gettan's broken body and brought him close to her.
"Your first mistake was killing me… Your second was thinking you could go after my daughter and not face the consequences."
The last thing Gettan saw was Yukihime opening her maw and moving it towards him.
Even with his broken bones, Gettan tried to break free but couldn't. He then began to plead when he realized how helpless he truly was.
"No! Please stop! I shouldn't have killed you! I'm sorry!" Gettan saw Yukime walking towards them. "Yukime! Please! Stop her! Remember all our good times together!"
Gettan didn't manage to say another word as Yukihime's jaw shut close over him, causing blood to gush out from between her fangs.
Yukime winced and looked away as it was too gory for her to stomach. Yukihime then spat it out to the side.
As she did, her form started to shrink, reverting to her regular fox lady figure. She wiped her mouth as she stood up in her yukata. "Disgusting," she spat to the side once more.
They all then heard Cid's voice, "That was quite the performance you guys put on, and that form was new, Yukihime. How did it come about?"
They turned towards the voice and saw Cid, surrounded in a purple outline, slowly float down towards them with a hand in his pocket. Yukihime put both her hands in her yukata sleeves and bowed towards Cid in respect. "I'm glad I was able to please you, my lord."
"As for the form, I don't know how it came about. I was just so angry and wanted to protect my daughter. My body acted on its own."
"I see. Then it appears there is more to Beastmen than we know. I'll have to look into it. Congrats, Yukihime."
Although Yukihime nodded, her tails betrayed her emotions as they rapidly swayed side to side, happy at being complimented.
Cid then turned towards Gettan's corpse and slightly pointed to it with a limp hand. "Erect."
From the corpse's shadow, a tall wolf wearing samurai armor appeared. It walked towards Cid with a katana in hand. Once it reached him, it knelt on one knee and presented the katana to him.
Cid took the shadow sword and swung it around, appreciating its appearance before knighting the samurai. "From here on out, you are to be known as Sushi."
Sushi felt power coursing through his soul as he bowed with a fist on the ground. "Gladly, my lord."
"Oh, it talks. Cool," Cid said, then gave him his sword back and started to walk away.
"Is that how he brought you to life, mother?" Yukime asked in awe.
"Yes."
Cid then walked towards the tree he had been sitting on and lightly tapped the ground with his foot. A small pillar began to rise, and on it was a bright ruby stone.
"What is that?" Yukime asked curiously.
Cid picked it up. "Sorry, you can't know." 'So this is her resentment…'
"Forgive me for prying," Yukime bowed.
But Cid just waved her off. "Don't worry about it. Anyway, onto what I wanted to talk to you about."
Yukime looked at Cid in confusion as Yukihime went to his side. "How would you feel about becoming a part of Shadow Garden?"
Yukime, hearing this, grew surprised, then smiled at him. "You have helped me out more times than I can count."
'I can, it's only like three times,' Cid thought but didn't say out loud.
She then bowed to him in the same way Yukihime had. "If it means I get to repay my long life debt to you, I would be more than honored to become a member of Shadow Garden."
The End... Of season 2 that is!
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A/N: Now for some after words...
Truly, I think this volume went on to be so much Better than volume 1. I had more experience and i had more fun which is the most important, it was just overall better.
Now like I did last Volume I would like to know which part of volume 2 was your favorite. believe it or not my favorite part was writing Celeste Pov. I didn't expect myself to enjoy that part as much as I did.
[Third Person's PoV]
In the Shadow Realm…
All of the girls were seen with exhausted expressions.
Gamma was seen with her fists both closed, slowly pulling them apart. The space in front of her broke open, and the space behind her also broke, giving her a view of her backside. She then collapsed to her knees, her witch hat shifting to the side as she tried to catch her breath. "I didn't think I would be able to open space by destroying it with gravity," she gasped for air.
Bellion nodded and turned towards the others. Alpha was surrounded by a field of flowers as she floated in the air, her eyes closed and eyebrows knitted. Yellow light slowly escaped from the top of the flowers and formed a bright ball in front of her. With two hands, she pushed it forward, and a beam of light destroyed the ground in front of her.
As Bellion was watching everything, he was also fighting Delta and Zeta. Even though they didn't get along well, they knew how to coordinate their attacks. Bellion was casually swinging his sword-whip around, throwing them everywhere as he gave advice to the others.
"Sound is just vibrations. Focus on the aspect of vibration specifically. Don't forget to add more power. Even if you just focus on the vibration, if it doesn't have any power, it won't accomplish much," Bellion said to Epsilon as his sword-whip snaked around Delta, repeatedly thrashing her to the ground, making it difficult for Zeta to approach.
Epsilon gritted her teeth as her magical aura grew, straining all of her magic power at once into her axe guitar. Cracks began to grow in the air as she exerted more pressure. Blood came out of her nose as all of her magic left, and she landed back on the ground, trying to catch her breath. Her hands had multiple cuts due to her grip on her weapon, adding to her pain.
"Now do your thing," Bellion said to Eta.
Eta, with her sleep-filled eyes, let out a sigh. "I haven't ever used my poison for medical procedures before. I could accidentally kill her."
"Everyone is immortal. Stop making excuses to get out of training," Bellion said with a warning look as he held both Delta and Zeta by their faces and threw them into the air.
"Poison and medicine are one and the same," Eta said to herself as a dark green liquid moved between her hands.
"A mixture of different poisons can create medicine. A mixture of different medicines can create poison. All I need to do is think of the proper formula and combination," she kept telling herself as the liquid began to move and shift.
Soon, the dark green coloring of the liquid started to turn lighter until it slowly became a beautiful bright green color.
"Here's to hoping I didn't accidentally create a poison that can bypass and kill immortals. Now, say ahhh," Eta said, crouching down by Epsilon and sticking out a finger.
Epsilon, who was sprawled out on the ground, looked towards Eta with concern at the drop of green liquid hanging from her index finger.
Epsilon tightly closed her eyes and opened her mouth. Eta let the drop fall from her finger into Epsilon's mouth. Epsilon immediately made a disgusted expression.
"Is it poisonous?" Eta asked.
"No, but it tastes like lime. I hate lime," Epsilon said as her wounds started to close.
"Enough relaxing. Get back to work," Bellion said as he held his sword-whip in the air, wrapping it around Delta and Zeta and pulling them to the ground, creating a large crater.
"And do it," Bellion said, looking at Eta.
"Do what?" she asked, close to falling asleep as she remained crouched.
"Develop a poison strong enough to affect an immortal," Bellion instructed.
Eta let out a groan. "I haven't gotten any sleep, you slave driver."
But Bellion didn't pay any attention to her and turned towards Epsilon. "Since you don't possess any mana right now, you can begin."
Epsilon sighed, nodded, and got into a lotus position, starting to draw mana to herself, more specifically into her core—a practice they've been doing for more than a week now.
Bellion then turned to the side, dodging two attacks from both Zeta and Delta. Delta had a heavy sword in her hand as she cleaved it down, while Zeta had a silver rapier.
Zeta rapidly stabbed her rapier, trying to get Bellion while also giving out occasional slashes.
Bellion immediately disarmed them and punched them in the stomach with enough force to make them spit out blood. "You guys are so pathetic. It wouldn't even surprise me if our lord simply abandoned you two, as you are his weakest links. Our lord has no time to waste with trash. You will only be a burden that would get him killed."
They all suddenly felt a killing intent so pungent that it began to manifest in the real world. Even the dark purple skies in the shadow realm started to be dyed red.
When they turned towards the source, they found Delta and Zeta, all bloody, slowly rising from the ground. What surprised and worried everyone was that Delta wasn't making any kind of expression.
Both Zeta and Delta had their dragon eyes active, but even these began to be affected by the killing intent as their eyes grew bright red.
They suddenly dropped to all fours as fur started to grow on their bodies. They began to expand and grow in size, appearing to be around 10 meters tall.
All the other girls stared at Zeta and Delta in shock as they examined their new appearances. Delta had beautiful dark fur, like the night itself. She appeared like a full-on wolf with her ears, tail, claws, and fangs.
Meanwhile, Zeta took on the appearance of a giant cat, but not just any cat. She appeared like a Maine Coon with bright golden fur, her claws and fangs much longer and deadlier than Delta's.
They appeared like Night and Day together as they stood next to each other, looking coldly towards Bellion. Their rage and hate had turned so strong they became indifferent.
They then disappeared into a blur as they approached Bellion, their claws aiming to kill him.
Bellion only had a small smile as he blocked their attack with his sword.
A giant crater formed before the ground crumbled into multiple pieces, unable to contain their strength.
Bellion grew wings on his back, his small smile indicating that his provocations had worked.
Bellion then flew away to a deeper part of the shadow realm so as not to disturb the training of the others.
"What just happened?" Beta asked in amazement as she looked towards where they left, seated in a lotus position with the ground marked by the use of her winds.
"That's what I'm trying to find out."
They all suddenly turned towards the voice. Upon seeing Cid leaning against a tree, they all rushed towards him and tackled him in a hug.
"We missed you," Epsilon said, looking up at him.
Cid only smiled as he patted their heads and gave them all a kiss.
"Why are you here?" Beta asked curiously.
"I detected Zeta and Delta were really angry, so I came to see what it was about. I didn't expect to see this happening to them."
"Do you have any ideas what's going on?" Alpha asked as she held his arm and leaned her head against his.
"Now that I've witnessed it twice more, I have a feeling," Cid nodded, then went on to explain his hypothesis. "When a beastman's emotions get out of control, they subconsciously ask for more strength, tapping into their bestial lineage. But they are only able to tap into it when their bodies are strong enough to handle the strain of turning into a beast. Otherwise, it would be inaccessible to them."
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A/N: First thing first, the 'Erect' wasn't a typo, I'm surprised only a few understood the reference.
Basically when solo leveling was airing and the English VA was getting a lot of threats saying to the mess up the Arise part.
So he made a video telling people to stop sending threats or he would purposely change 'Arise' to something else. Some of the suggestions were, "Wakey wakey" "It's time for school" and obviously "Erect"
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GOT IT